


I can give her no greater power than she already has (and don’t you see how strong that is?)

by jennifercharter



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e22 De-Void, F/M, Lydia is a genius, Lydia-centric, Nogitsune Stiles, POV Lydia, We knew that, a momentary cut scene from that ep, sorta - Freeform, spoilers up to Season 3 finale, stiles is a nerd, the story of Lydia Martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-05
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-13 02:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4504539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennifercharter/pseuds/jennifercharter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia Martin is no fool, but she didn't exactly plan for Stiles to grow on her after all this time. She also probably read too many fairy tales as a kid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I can give her no greater power than she already has (and don’t you see how strong that is?)

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing. I wrote this in less than an hour after binge-watching this show, holy crap. I just really like that no one ever points out how much Stiles has obviously come to mean to Lydia! I mean less than a year after being someone that ignored his existence completely she is making deals with Peter-freaking-Hale to save him, knowing that Scott will probably hate her for it.
> 
> Seriously, that gives me feels.

Lydia Martin is not a fool. She knows exactly what people think of her, what they have always thought of her. She knows how to flip her hair and smile just right, and get everything she wants. 

She knows it makes her a manipulator, but in this day and age, honestly, it’s necessary. 

She knows she’s a genius when she’s in the first grade. Well, maybe not genius, but ahead of the others. She speeds through everything. She helps some of the other kids when they need it. She smiles at teachers and volunteers for everything, and learns early that the troublemakers are frowned on and rarely chosen for the good jobs, or given extra treats. She learns quickly how to earn extra treats. 

By the third grade she knows she more than just ahead. She finishes her work on the playground while everyone else runs around like idiots. 

Occasionally she gets to school early enough to take her breakfast to the library where she reads books that her teacher just recently told her, in a very condescending tone, were too big for a little girl like her. She’s nine, for God’s sake, not two.

That’s how she meets Stiles Stilinski.

Well, meets isn’t the right word, since they’ve gone to the same small school since kindergarten, but she doesn’t remember ever speaking to him. She thinks he has a really weird name that no one even calls him, and she can’t remember the nickname he calls himself.

It happens like this:

There’s a boy in the library reading a comic on a Thursday morning. He’s dark-haired, skinny, and has his chair tilted back on it’s back legs. She ignores him, because besides the two seconds it took her to identify him as the weird-named kid whose name she doesn’t remember, she has no interest in him. She moves to the magazines, an aisle over, and finds the newest Scientific American and brings it back to the table. There’s an article on brain chemistry, and it fascinates her. 

Her mom says sometimes that something went wrong with her mother’s brain chemistry. She won’t answer any questions with detail.

Lydia, despite her obvious genius, can never forget that her grandmother gave her a book of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales, and that they used to read the fairy tales together. They read Little Mermaid over and over together.

Lydia has read every story in that book, over and over again. But she will never stop being Ariel.

And she will never understood why she had to lose her grandmother.

The feel of eyes on her makes her look up several times, but besides the librarian and the comic book nerd, no one else is here this early. She goes back to her magazine, then looks up right away, and catches the boy looking away.

She blinks, then goes back to reading.

That’s it. No big meeting, no words exchanged.

That might have been all there was, ever, except at recess that day the bullies decide to interrupt her studying by picking on the comic book nerd.

She doesn’t catch what they’re saying exactly, but she can tell what’s happening. The boys on the ground and they’re standing over him, sneering. 

She could go back to her work. She could wait for a teacher to notice. Her grandmother used to read her fairy tales, though, and fairy tales, the real ones, don’t usually end because an adult stepped in. In the good ones, the children are the heroes.

She sighs and stands, flips her hair and skips towards them.

They all notice her immediately, of course. Comic book nerd stares at her, caught between hopeful and terrified. 

“Hey, Snow Queen,” one of the boys taunts.

She huffs. “Mrs. Graeme wants you.”

The boy blinks. “What? Why?”

She shrugs, nonchalant. “I didn’t ask.”

“Come on, Ashton,” his friend prods and the boys trudge off towards the school.

Lydia turns back to the boy and holds out her hand. He is watching her in awe now. “Did Mrs. Graeme really want them?”

She rolls her eyes. “Of course not. You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he says quickly. “I don’t cry.”

“Just because you don’t have tears, doesn’t mean you don’t suffer,” she says with a shrug and he blinks at her. She blushes. “It’s from Little Mermaid.”

“I don’t remember that from the movie.”

She sighs. “No, I mean the actual story, by Hans Christian Andersen. I mean, Ariel is my favorite Disney princess, because we both have red hair, but the original story is so good.”

“Oh, I’ve never read it.”

“Why were they picking on you?”

“His mom is a nurse at the hospital my mom went to,” he said sullenly. “I used to see him there, and he picked on me there too. Guess he missed me,” he jokes softly.

“Went to?”

“She died,” he muttered.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he says quickly and grins at her. “Want to come play tetherball?”

“No,” she says simply and glances to her books. “I’m doing the schoolwork.”

“Oh.” He looked disappointed and she twitched to get away. “Want to do the work together?”

“No.” She stepped back. “Bye.”

“Why did he call you Snow Queen?”

“Because he caught me reading fairy tales and wants to make me feel like that’s something I should be ashamed of,” she said with a shrug. “Also, I don’t really like dealing with people.”

“You dealt with them, for me,” he says with a grin.

“I didn’t do that for you,” she said with a roll of her eyes, and then she walked away from him. 

She ignores him from then on, but she feels his eyes on her.

 

When she hits puberty a magical thing happens.

She becomes popular, and everyone is looking to her, and after a soft gaffe she realizes she can’t be smart anymore if she wants friends.

And, oh God, does she want friends.

She’s lonely. Lonely and longing for the human world like Princess Ariel.

She starts giggling more and stops reading in public, and she pretends like the homework is hard, and she is always super impressed by the captain of the lacrosse team, no matter who he is.

Comic book nerd boy frowns at her a lot more. He’s got his own friend though. Some other dark-haired guy. They like practicing lacrosse, and apparently, getting picked on.

Once, they’re getting picked on by her new boyfriend, Jackson and the boy shoots her a look, a small smile, like she’s supposed to say something.

She doesn’t defend people anymore. 

Life is not a fairy tale.

She looks through him like he doesn’t exist.

“Snow Queen indeed,” he mutters with a humorless laugh, as she flounces away, her arm firmly around Jackson. She pretends she doesn't hear, but if she gets through extra homework that night because she can't sleep, she never admits that either.

 

 

She doesn’t have red shoes on, but she’s wearing a red shirt when he goes missing. It’s even got roses. She takes that as a good sign.

He’s possessed, like Kai was with the splinter in his eye. 

She wears nothing unless it’s red or has roses until he’s found, even when all she has is socks.

 

 

It’s her idea to call Peter. Scott calls him first and is hung up on in about a second flat once his request is out.

Lydia sits in the kitchen while Scott rages silently. Peter has been in her head. He knows how she thinks. 

She’s learned a little about how he works too, though.

She steps outside and calls him.

“Well, hello, Lydia? Calling for more lessons? Or, let me guess, you want my help with the possessed kid?”

“I want you to help Stiles,” she whispers.

“But making him a wolf? Is he really worth all of this trouble, do you think?” Peter huffs. “I don’t see the appeal myself.”

She can't flip her hair and bat her eyes now. She can't even glare or flirt her way in. All she can do is be honest and possibly beg. “He’s my friend. What do you want from me?”

“Are you in love with him?” He’s taunting her now, she knows it and she closes her eyes to blink back tears, because she can’t lose him. She saved him from bullies and he fell in love. She’s pretty sure he’s the one that bought her the annotated edition of fairy tales that she has adored ever since her thirteenth birthday, no matter how she rolled her eyes when she opened the unsigned gift.

And he’s held her hand while monsters raged around them and he’s always known her, and she’s learned him, and whatever infatuation he used to have, it’s not that anymore. And thank God for that.

“He’s my tin soldier,” she said softly. “And I’m his paper ballerina.”

Peter is silent a long moment. “Well, that clears it up.”

“I’ll tell you the name,” she whispers.

This silence is longer, but she can hear that his breathing has picked up. Then it slows and she can hear his smirk. “I’ll be right there.”

He pulls her to the side of everyone else and hisses at her, eyes wide and his nose flaring. “Tell me.”

“After,” she says steadily. She smiles bitterly and channeled the sea witch. “I know what you want. I will give it to you.” May it bring you sorrow, she thinks. “Help us save him, and I will tell you the thing you want most.”

She follows his plan, because she is not the Snow Queen. 

She is Gerda and Stiles is Kai.

And she will bring him home.

 

 _Snip, snap, snare,_ she thinks numbly, joyfully. _It’s all right at last!_

Then Stiles is on the ground, pulling cloth from his mouth and there is a monster ready to kill them, and Stiles is pulling her out of the door.

 

She remembers once, being very young, and curled against her grandmother as she read to her. She wanted to cry when the mermaid turned to sea foam, and had asked her grandmother why not all fairy tales have happy endings.

Her grandmother had smiled and tucked her blanket closer around her. "Because life doesn't always have a happy ending, darling. Sometimes, life is hard, and all the good fairy tales know that."

"She didn't get her happy ending," Lydia said sadly.

"But she got sort of a happy ending, a chance at one. She'll live with her sisters for three hundred years and earn a soul. That's what she wanted all along, remember? And maybe she'll find another prince, one that loves her as much as she needs to be loved. That would be a happy ending."

Lydia frowns. "Do you think I'll find a prince?"

"Darling girl, I think someday you will. But don't expect it to be easy. A true prince is worth a long wait."

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE leave a comment or a kudos and let me know if you loved it or hated it! Thank you!
> 
> Obviously, I have some Hans Christian Andersen feels right now.


End file.
